Career Change

[JakeGrafton]

Greetings ...

Forgive me if I'm asking a question that should be addressed in another forum or group. This question is directed to all the SolidWorks Engineering Technician's (SolidWorks VAR's).

I'm thinking of changing my career path. I've been in the mechanical engineering field for the last 20+ years, for the last 2 years I've been focused on Engineering Services (Document Control). I've worked at Medical Device companies, underwater research companies, and commercial goods companies. I've been using SolidWorks since 1997 (approximately 9+ years). I've also been heavily using PDMWorks for the last 4 years.

What I'd like to ask is what kind of compensation can I expect from a SolidWorks VAR or from SolidWorks ? I live in the New England area.

I'd really like to hear from you and your suggestions or opinions.

Thanks in advance.

Jake Grafton
Manager, Engineering Services

 

[josephv]

Hello Jake,

"What I'd like to ask is what kind of compensation can I expect from a SolidWorks VAR or from SolidWorks ? "

It depends on what you will be doing for them. Let me give you two examples:

1) Your main job is customer service and handling installation question on the phone

2) Your main job is technical sales with a high end PLM package

Since example 2 could generate quite a bit a revenue for a reseller it would probably pay quite well specially if there were sales bonuses. Example 1 would most likely not pay above average.

I find this to be the case with most industries, if your job clearly helps a company bring in revenue, then your compensation has the potential to be good.

My advice, if you are interested you should talk to SolidWorks and a few VARs and try to set up "information" interviews to see where you could help them best.

Best regards,

Joe

 

[SBaugh]

IMO option 1 does generate revenue, but no one seems to acknowledge it. If it was not for good Technical support and customer service, then they would not keep coming back for Maintenance agreement every year. That is a form of Revenue for the VAR is it not?

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[Beggar]

If it was not for good Technical support and customer service, then they would not keep coming back for Maintenance agreement every year.

From this user's perspective, I disagree. I come back for maintenace because I want the new release and especially the service packs. It's nice to know tech support is there but I rarely call them anymore. If I could split tech support from the software upgrades, I would. As it is, we didn't extend our "maintenance" because we just couldn't afford it and are stuck on 2006-4.1 or 2007-0.0

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How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[SBaugh]

You might not call and I was not saying its all about the support, but you would be surprised how many callers continue to call... been here almost 4 years and I continue to get the same repeat callers every week, if not more.

Most of them are experienced users too.

Regards

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376

 

[josephv]

Hello Scott,

You make a very good point.

Customer Service/Support people certainly generate revenue. But I don't think they get much recognition. Here are some examples why:

1) A customer threatens to cancel maintenance after repeated crashing with their CAD package. The VAR sends in a support engineer whom saves the day by installing a "patch" that fixes the problem. The customer renews their maintenance.

2) A VAR sells 20 seats of a high end PLM package, thanks in large part to a sales engineer who wrote an excellent sales proposal.

In case 1 the management team of the VAR may have thought that the customer was going to renew anyways and does not recognize the support engineer who saved the day.

In case 2 the management team at the VAR just received a very big purchase order, and gives the sales engineer a hefty bonus.

Note, I am not saying that this is a good thing, but I have seen it happen.

Please let me know your thoughts, this is an interesting issue.

Also, "Beggar" makes a very good point, could it be that the perception is that some customers choose to renew for other reasons than customer service / support?

Kind regards,

Joseph

 

[Beggar]

Scott, you're right that the tech support has monetary value for your employer and contributes to revenue. I say this because, after having brought Inventor 6 and SWX 2004 into two prior employers, I was in a position of deciding between Inventor 9 and SWX 2005 at a new employer.

One of the major factors in my decision was the lame support offered by the ADSK VAR as compared to the outstanding support which I knew was offered by the SWX VAR (with whom I already have experience).

Except for the (major) issue of Inventor's lack of configurations, I considered the software pretty much a push. However, since I'm much more experienced with SWX, the VAR support for Inventor would have been important to me.

In the end, in large part because of the big difference in support (and a lame demo by a guy from Autodesk who should have been fired), I chose SWX.

I agree with your primary statement that you folks are part of the revenue generation, I just disagree (strongly) with your statement that I quoted above.

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How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[Beggar]

Looking again at this thread topic, I realize how far off I've gone.

I won't RF myself in this case but somebody else can feel free.

--------------------
How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[JakeGrafton]

OK ... sooo after reading through all of the posts, I still don't have a ballpark idea as to what a Technical Support Engineer, or a Territory Technical Manager, or something similar would see for compensation from a SolidWorks VAR or SolidWorks.

I'm just exploring my options and testing the waters.

 

[rockguy]

Why don't you check out the career section of the SW website. Sometimes they list pay ranges. Better yet, why not apply for the job and take an interview. I'm sure all your questions would be answered there.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP
President: Northern
Vermont SolidWorks User Group

http://www.robrodriguez.com

(updated 8/12/06)
SW 2006 SP 4.0 / SW 2007 SP 0.0

 

[bvanhiel]

Why so hinkey with the #'s? Keeping them secret isn't helping anyone.

-b

 

[Beggar]

Who's being hinkey? Scott does work for a VAR but why would Scott J. Baugh choose to publish his rate of pay on a world-wide forum? Not only would it be compromising his privacy, his boss might not care to see that either. He'd be an idiot to do so -- if you've read many of his posts you'll see that he's quite the opposite.

I would guess that the pay from a VAR for doing tech support and product demos is going to be at the lower end of the engineering pay scale. It's not really an engineering job per se, and it doesn't require an engineer to do it. It requires somebody who knows the software very, very well.

My guess would be that the person with the responsbility to close the sale would be paid substantially more, presuming they're good at closing.

From what I've seen across products is that those folks are occasionally engineers but frequently not.

This is purely a guess but I'd think that the VAR support guys are earning somewhere in the $18/hr - $30/hr range, depending on where they're located. Again, this is just a total WAG.

--------------------
How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[ng89]

Barely anyone on here would know the answer to the question. The only people that would are the people who have the position or have at least received an offer for the position. Not too many people here fit that description.

And most people don't share their salaries with their friends, nor would they post it for an entire web-community to see.

 

[bvanhiel]

My philosophy, that I don't expect most people to agree with, is:

Salary's being secret only hurts the employees. It creates an information advantage for the employer, as the employee can only guess at what a fair range is, whereas the employer knows what everyone else is getting paid.

Begger, despite gently biting my head off for the prodding, gave the kind of information that I think Jake was looking for.

-b

 

[Beggar]

Keep in mind that what I gave you is a guess from somebody who's never worked for a VAR nor ever worked for a software company (I came close with Autodesk but never grabbed the golden ring).

For what it's worth, you're right that it benefits employers to keep salary information private. However, I would still not share mine to the world. Under the anonymity of my handle, in the right thread, I probably would.

--------------------
How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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